Seraph
by Evilyn Grendel
Summary: While spending a pleasant afternoon drinking, Crowley accidentally reveals a tidbit of information from his past Before the Fall. Aziraphale is too curious to let it go. Pair fic with Cherub. Cowritten by Arthur Albion.


_Cowritten by Arthur Albion_

_Pair Fic with Cherub, which can be found on my page. Reading order doesn't matter, although this is chronologically the first part._

* * *

**Pre-Armageddon - Spring 2000**

The table in between the two was covered with bottles. It was late afternoon, maybe early evening, and an angel and a demon had been drinking off and on for much of the day. Crowley refilled his glass, nearly missing on the first attempt. There had been a natural lull in their conversation. A comfortable silence. Safe behind his dark glasses, Crowley spaced out gazing at Aziraphale.

"D'you remember that wanker? Fought a giant to become king? The one with the stupid statue. Michael angle or whatever."

"Dante. I mean, Daniel. Erm. David."

"That one! That one. David."

"The shepherd boy."

"Was he one of ours, or one of yours? You hung around a lot."

"Well, yes. I suppose he was one of ours. Someone had to miracle the stone to knock out that giant. Although the beheading bit wasn't originally planned." Aziraphale pulled a face at the memory of decapitation.

"Always knew his aim was shit. Easy to tempt, anyway."

"Bath-Beths-Bethany? Was that you?"

"Uh, yeah, whatever. Terrible name, her. Might have done."

"Might have known. Quite a nasty affair. All the Archangels upset with me over that one."

Crowley almost looked apologetic. "Well, y'know, direct orders. Anyway. Lust, not usually my thing. Still, the little bugger has his stupid, naked statue. Tch."

"And he played. Harp. Lovely music."

"Yeah, and that's just it! Giants and playing and statues. You'd think he was Apollo."

Aziraphale cast the demon a sceptical look. "Apollo is a geek- Greek god."

"Roman too. Romans stealing everything! All the time! Even gods. God thieves, the Romans."

"God of music and dance and archery and Sun, celestial twins." Aziraphale pushed on, determined not to lose his train of thought.

"Twins, yeah. Sun is Hely-He- Sunshine Car. Anyway. Twins. They're in the sky, yeah. No. Wrong twins. Which?" Crowley frowned at the glass of wine. He should know, and it bothered him to forget.

"Apollo and Artemis, sun and moon. Twins."

"No, wrong twins." He repeated himself, thinking much too hard about this. "Dioskouroi! The, uh, Castor. Pollux. Gemini, yeah."

"The constellation?" Aziraphale paused, brow furrowed in confusion. "What does the constellation of Gemini have to do with David?"

"Uh," Crowley searched for the link here. "Two-faced little brat, David."

The angel frowned and muttered into his glass, "David wasn't a Gemini."

"Might have been. Whatever. Zodiac just being worked out then anyway. Eighteen of them. Babylonian weirdos making up all kinds of stuff about my stars."

"Your stars?"

"Yes! My stars! I made them!" Crowley launched himself up from the couch where he had been slowly but steadily sliding off towards the floor for the last hour or so. "Stars and nebulae and planets and space. My work! Ungrateful bastards."

Aziraphale watched from the depths of his comfortable armchair, carefully clutching his wine glass with both hands. He struggled to process this simple piece of information. "You made the stars. Creation?"

"No, Creation was all Her hand. Earth and Garden and Sun and Mars. Universe and other, space, far off was my job. Not just my job. Mostly my job."

"No, _during_ Creation. That task was- I thought that task was assigned to the Seraphim? Help build God's heavenly palace, as it were."

Reaching out, the demon grabbed more wine. Bypassing the glass he must have left on the table seeing as it was no longer in his hand, he drank directly from the bottle. "Yeah."

Aziraphale stared into his near-empty glass, trying to muddle around the warm fuzziness of the alcohol slowing his thoughts. He suddenly sat upright, moving to place his wine glass on the desk beside him and clumsily hit the base against the wooden edge, chipping the glass. He didn't seem to notice. "You were a Seraph?"

"That was a long time ago."

"Obviously."

Crowley rolled his eyes, glaring at the far wall over Aziraphale's head. "Yeah, I was. Seraph, I mean. I remember a lot of, y'know, Before. Wouldn't be much punishment to forget."

Finally realizing how personal the topic was, Aziraphale silently chided his drunken state. "I'm so sorry, dear boy. It was rude of me to pry."

"Shut up." He waved his empty hand in the angel's general direction dismissing the apology.

Aziraphale stood slowly, wincing as he dispelled the alcohol from his bloodstream. "I think we've both had enough to drink, don't you agree?"

"Mm," Crowley agreed gloomily. Wincing when the alcohol departed him as well, he glared down at the bottle still in hand. He thought about picking right back up where he had left off with it, but he suspected this was far from over. Setting the bottle down with the rest for Aziraphale to collect, he ran a hand through his hair and collapsed back down onto the couch in a low slouch.

Aziraphale straightened his waistcoat and began cleaning up the mess of bottles and empty wine glasses. He tsked softly at the chip and miracled it whole again. Wouldn't want someone to step on the shard. He could have miracled the whole room clean, but Aziraphale sensed the need for both of them to collect themselves before continuing the conversation.

The angel took the bottles to the cabinet in the back room and placed them on the shelves, leaving the two glasses to soak in the kitchenette sink. Crowley remained lounging on the couch as Aziraphale tidied up. He knew better than to attempt to help, and it wasn't in his nature anyway. The demon entertained the idea of fleeing now whilst he still had the opportunity to escape, but the idea of avoiding the angel until this blew over didn't appeal to him. He liked spending time here in the bookshop.

Once he finished his fussing, the angel made his way back to his armchair and sat as if nothing particularly unusual had been said. Aziraphale wasn't the type to ask questions, but the elephant was making the atmosphere uncomfortable.

"All right. Out with it."

Aziraphale had the decency to look guilty. "Well, I have often wondered. For a demon, you've always seemed particularly-"

"-watch it-"

"-powerful." Aziraphale cast the demon a slightly annoyed glance at being interrupted. "Being able to stop time is not something a demon of average stock would be able to manage. Not like you have done, in the past."

Crowley smirked, not expecting praise. "Yeah, well, most demons probably wouldn't have enough imagination to consider stopping time at all. Demons are just Too Late, all the time. Your lot made up Time. Still, not like my past did much for me Down There. Being a demon, 's not something you talk about. Before, y'know."

"No, I imagine not. Not really talked about in Heaven either."

"Not much of anything talked about in Heaven. Those bastards just swept us under the celestial rug."

Aziraphale pressed his lips together and made a vague noise of assent. Crowley didn't push the topic of Heavenly policy. The angel wasn't consulted on policy decisions, and he knew this. Heaven might actually be good if Aziraphale ran things.

"Hang on, as I recall, both the Christian Bible and Hebrew Tanakh use the term of seraph to mean angel as well as serpent. Is that why you chose the form of a serpent in Eden?"

"Hmm, well, no. That translation confusion was a human mistake, but I might have, uh, been the cause of that mistake. Snakes, they just seemed sort of elegant really. And it is really much easier to climb up out of Hell through the dirt and into a Garden without limbs in the way. Humans have a nice shape and all, but shoulders can be a bit tricky underground. But, yeah, I picked the snake if that's what you meant. Wasn't assigned to me by Beelzebub or Dagon."

"They are elegant," Aziraphale conceded, thinking of Crowley's serpentine form. He looked curious. "Assigned? Are all demons assigned a type of earth creature?"

"We all have one, yeah. Lesser demons are assigned, I think, some overlap and share," Crowley paused as he thought about other, greater demons. "Not really sure if others are assigned. Might not have enough imagination to choose. Whatever. I picked mine. Serpent. I'm the only one. Don't share well."

"And that's where you got the, well, for lack of a better term, the tattoo?" He pointed at the side of his own face as a mirror of Crowley.

"Not really a tattoo, no. Not ink, at least, but yeah. That's my Mark. Would have been a bit of a problem to be walking around with a snake scarf all the time or Medusa hair, right, so I opted to represent it this way instead. Got a lot of funny looks Down There in the early days for it."

"I don't know about that. It seems rather useful in the bookshop to wear a snake as a scarf." Aziraphale said lightly.

"It's not the same, angel. It's just this, this, _accessory _I would have to deal with all the time. You'd see what I mean if you ever had the misfortune of meeting Hastur. Great bloody toad on his head all the time. No hair or anything, and warts all over his face. Or Ligur. Ligur, with his wretched chameleon. No, definitely snake tattoo. Much better. Easier to blend in up here with the humans."

"I assume those are all necessary changes when becoming a demon." The angel paused. "Was there anything you could keep from your ethereal form?"

Crowley glanced away at the question, a growl escaping him before he snapped back at the angel. "You try a million light-year dive into a pool of boiling sulfur and try to keep your ethereal form. Let me know how that works out for you because I can tell you it won't." Breathing hard, he couldn't look at Aziraphale. Crowley stood up and began pacing in agitation trying to calm down. He couldn't have put into words why he was allowing this interrogation, but he had allowed it and so had no one to blame but himself.

"Look, the wings, I managed to keep two of them, at least." Crowley didn't want to mention the four permanent scars on his back. They showed up on his skin as vivid as his eyes, even on his human corporation. A constant reminder. Aziraphale gave a horrified shudder and listened silently as the demon carried on.

"The Holyfire of a Seraph was stripped away with everything else Holy; it's just Hellfire now. Not as warm, but better than cold-blooded. Only downside to snakes really, being cold-blooded."

Aziraphale didn't move from his own chair and simply watched the demon pace. "I'm sorry."

"I don't need pity, angel."

"I don't pity you. I'm just sorry it happened at all."

"Yeah, well, don't."

The angel didn't respond to this, knowing that arguing the point wasn't going to accomplish anything. Crowley was rightly upset. He had been cast out by the very beings Aziraphale worked for and no apology from a mere Principality would ever make up for what happened to Crowley.

He was quiet for a moment as he considered the wisdom of asking this next question, then continued on before he lost the nerve. "You mentioned before, over one hundred years ago now I believe my dear, that you hadn't meant to Fall. Why did you Fall?"

A long sigh morphed into a very audible groan at the question as the demon ran a hand across his face in exasperation. Crowley stalked back over to the couch and perched on the very edge of the seat. He stared at Aziraphale as he decided how much to say. It was tempting to lie, but Crowley didn't like lying to Aziraphale.

"I Fell because I asked questions. Questions about the Plan, questions about the Humans, questions about Earth and the Garden. Questions about everything. Too many questions. In the end, I was on the wrong cloud with the wrong people. I didn't mean to Fall, I just wanted answers. Didn't even have to fight and rebel properly in the old days. Asking questions was enough."

"Old days, yes." Aziraphale looked very uncomfortable and glanced down at his immaculate fingernails. "I wasn't there, you know. For the fighting. Already assigned to Eden and apple tree duty on Earth. Never heard about any of it until I received the notice we were being issued flaming swords in case, well-"

"In case a wily demon managed to get into the Garden and began causing trouble?" He turned and kicked his feet up on the couch as he reclined easily with a wicked grin.

The angel shot Crowley an exasperated glare without malice. "It seems they were right to be concerned."

"Uh, maybe. But not like a flaming sword was going to stop a particularly clever demon. Even if the angel holding that flaming sword looked very impressive." The smirk seemed to be an almost permanent aspect of his face as he preened over his first temptation. It had gotten him a commendation Down Below. The only commendation he had actually earned in six millennia.

Aziraphale snorted. "As impressive as it might have looked, I was never really the smiting type. Besides, you were clever enough to slip past my notice."

"Yes, I remember. Always was glad not to be smote up on that wall, you know. Would have been a real damper on my day. More damp than the first rain even." Crowley had never asked about Aziraphale's role in the Celestial War in Heaven. He knew the angel had never killed anything, but he hadn't realised that went all the way back to Before as well. "Probably for the best. The fighting, it was all a messy and a sad sort of-, you wouldn't have liked it."

"No, probably not." Aziraphale, who had been gazing unseeingly at the bookshelf stuffed in one corner, now turned his gaze to Crowley. Unconsciously, he began to twist the gold ring around the small finger on his right hand. "But, you were there."

"Yeah, but, yeah. I was. I wasn't the fighting type either. Starmaker isn't exactly the most bloodthirsty sort of job after all. Rather isolated really. But, ask some questions and suddenly you're, y'know, sauntering vaguely downwards. Anyway. Should have punched Gabriel before I went. Would've been nice."

Aziraphale gave Crowley a stern look of disapproval, but the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed his hidden amusement. "Yes, angering an Archangel seems like quite a grand idea."

"He deserves it. Probably deserved it then too for, for something. Besides, I was already Fallen. What more could Gabriel do? Play his harp at me?"

"He could have destroyed you."

"Yeah, well, I might have let him. Back then."

Aziraphale suddenly looked ill. "Don't, don't say that, my dear."

"I wouldn't _now_. I wouldn't let that prick kill me, I have a reputation. But, y'know. Well, no. You wouldn't, I 'spose. Being on the better side of eternal damnation and punishment, still connected to God and everything." Crowley's tone was flat rather than cruel. He was glad Aziraphale was still an angel. As much as he might hate Heaven, he could never hate or blame his angel.

There was a tale-tell pause as a thought crossed the angel's mind. His eyes wandered away from Crowley again, back down to his hands as he mulled it over. He spoke slowly. "Crowley, it is my understanding the Seraphim have, or at least had, a particular means to communicate with the Almighty. Did you, is that, true?" He paused, then added quickly, "Of course, the old days were rather different, weren't they? But, the Archangels and the Seraphim were supposed to have a direct line, so to speak."

"Angel," Crowley sighed again, this time a warning. He was decidedly very done with this conversation. "Look, I don't know about the Seraphim these days, but yeah. I could just speak aloud and She would hear. None of that circle business like you've got under the rug." He gestured vaguely towards the middle of the shop. The angel visibly cringed but didn't interrupt.

"Sometimes, She would actually reply. Never replied after Creation though. Not to me. Not to anyone. She heard us, but her new playthings took all her attention. Couldn't be bothered anymore, I guess." His tone had turned bitter as he remembered, and he wished Aziraphale hadn't put the alcohol away.

When Crowley had finished his criticisms, the angel looked away thoughtfully, twisted his ring back into place and simply said, "I see."

A beat of silence passed before Aziraphale stood. "Well, I'd say Heaven was lucky you made your exquisite stars before the War. They couldn't have found a Starmaker to equal you in Heaven. Tea?"

Crowley glanced up, momentarily confused when the angel stood abruptly. He softened at the compliments, both to his work and to himself. The demon could only nod in reply as Aziraphale bustled off to make tea. He almost never drank it, but that wasn't really the point. It wasn't the first time, and certainly wouldn't be the last, Crowley was struck by the thought that he really was very glad he had decided to strike up a conversation with an angel on a wall of a garden.


End file.
